Over the holiday, I’ve managed to make some good progress hammering out the details for “Against the Inevitable”. Here’s a rough look at how I’m planning to break the system down.
Getting Started
To start a new game of AtI, do the following:
- Choose a Scenario: I’m planning on using “scenario cards” as a way to kick start play. These will include a summary of the setting, the situation, each side’s goals, and some possible starting scenes.
- Declare Allegiance: Once the scenario has been chosen, players can choose to ally themselves with the heroic, adversarial, or neutral sides. Each side carries its own special benefits.
- Opening Scene: Pick one of the opening scenes on the scenario card or make up one of your own.
Player Abilities
All players can use the following actions to affect the game:
- Narrate: Each player can state actions, facts, or events about the game world. If not opposed, these statements become true. By default, narration can not dramatically change a major element of the game world, nor block a character’s progress to their goals.
- Oppose: Any player can object to a given statement. When this happens, resolve it as follows.
- Negotiate: When an objection is made, players can try to convince the objecting players to withdraw their objections. If no compromise can be reached within a reasonable time, go to the next step.
- Draw: When negotiation fails, use chance to determine the winner. I’ll go into detail on this in a later post, but right now I’m thinking of using a card draw mechanic to support a “forces of fate” feel to the game.
- Claim: Each player can claim a setting element once per scene. Claimed elements are automatically considered major elements. The claiming player also gets increased control over the element and its actions. I may allow for a second round of claims if all players have claimed something in a given scene.
- Challenge: Players can propose challenges as desired. A proposed challenge must have at least one player willing to support each side before it can begin. Challenges give players a way to bend narrative rules, gain mechanical advantages, and progress toward their final goals.
- Advance: Each player can advance a character once per scene. Advancing a character can add new traits or make it easier to add extra details to the character.
That covers a lot of the core gameplay. Next time I’ll look at the different player allegiances and how they shape the game.
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